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reviews Quentin Dubost / Wade Matthews / Stephane Rives / Ingar Zach Read an article about Ingar Zach in the october issue of the norwegian music magazine MUTE by journalist Arild R. Andersen (available only in norwegian at the moment) click here to read - Read the interview in The Eventguide in Dublin by clicking here
Percussion Music (SOFA 516): Oslo percussionist works regularly with Euro improv heavyweights like Derek Bailey, and Charlotte Hug, but his first solo album makes one wonder why he needs collaborators at all, such is the scope and density of the music it contains. Zach is a one-man AMM, deploying a battery of techniques and instrumentation (including zither) to create a rumbling, sizzling backdrop to sharp percussive interventions that range from the delicate to the abrasive. in his ability to sound his instruments without conventional attack, extracting otherworldly textures and overtones from metal, wood and skin, he recalls amore mercurial Eddie Prevost. The concluding section, in which Zach apparently takes a host of electric shavers to each percussive device simultaneously, is quite monstrous, with the weight of the ambient space(the album was recorded in a disused chocolate factory) adding to the oppressive menace of the music. Keith Moliné for The Wire February 2005
Ingar Zach; ” Percussion Music” (SOFA 516) PS ! Norwegian only”Percussion Music” er Sofas andre utgivelse med soloperkusjon. Paal Nilssen-Loves ” Sticks & Stones” var på mange måter skjellsettende, og det er også Ingar Zachs ” Percussion Music”. Tittelen kan riktignok være noe misvisende, idet det her kun I liten grad er snakk om perkussive elementer I musikken. Utgivelsen består av kun ett tre kvarters strekk med lange, bordunaktige flater. Ved bruk av elektriske vifter mot perkusjonsinstrumentenes overflater, skapes vibrerende droner som isolert sett kunne virket som støy lik pressluftsbor I det fjerne eller en irriterende summing fra et kjøleskap. Men her er det satt inn I en meditativ ramme, med omfavnsrikt dynamisk spenn. Her er det rett og slett snakk om fordypningens kunst, der de hypnotiske klangflatene har en nærmest tidsopphevende effekt. En umiddelbar assosiasjon er noen av maleren Mark Rothko senere bilder, der fargeflatene først kan virke duse og ubevegelige, før de etter en tids betraktning strammer grepet og fremstår som uhyggeli g tilstedeværende. Ingar Zachs ”Percussion Music” vil uten tvil fremstå som en av årets mest særpregete utgivelser og en milepæl I norsk fri improvisasjonsmusikk. Carl Petter Opsahl for Jazznytt
Ingar Zach - Percussion Music. PS ! In Norwegian only.
Ingar Zach / Rhodri Davies 'Ieirll' -Another wonderous offering from Qbico and like the other three LPs the label has just released this one also focusses on the Scandanavian scene. Here we have some otherwordly improv courtesy of Rhodri Davies (harp) and Ingar Zach (percussion). I personally believe Zach to be one of the most exciting percussionists in improv circles right now and this LP is an exceptional example of his ability to comfortably use a huge range of percussive tools. Rhodri Davies harpwork here is also outstanding and enough to rival Zeena Parkins in terms of the amount sounds he can pull from his instrument. Together they weave some amazing tense metallic sounds into the most incredible alien textures often giving the impression that there are more than two musicians present and more than their stated instruments being used. Recorded November 2002 in London. Recommended.
- Beautiful duo set from these two European improvisors which is a deal more removed from any estabished notions of intuitive post-SME thought than you might initially suspect. Davies plays harp througout, but right from the first track he steers away from both the scrabbly string attack favoured by most post-Derek Bailey strategists and the Heavy Metal assault of instrumental pioneers like Zeena Parkins, opting instead for a slow blur of droning notes that flare like fizzing electric currents into foggy, almost medieval-sounding constructs. Zach – one of Derek Bailey's most invogorating duo partners – stays away from the bulk of the kit, preferring to focus on mechanical contraptions and what sounds like electronically stimulated prayer bowls in order to illuminate Davies's dilated constucts, and there are points where the constallations of slow, zoning tones bring to mind Frank Perry's devotional solo work. Over on the b side, things are slightly more tangible, with Davies handling the harp a little more aggressively and invoking the kind of taut, intuitive exchange that favours timbral clout over textural or melodic subtelty. David Keenan for The Wire (July 2005)
Quentin Dubost / Wade Matthews / Stephane Rives / Ingar Zach DINING ROOM MUSIC Quentin Dubost (electric guitar), Wade Matthews (bass clarinet, alto flute), Stephane Rives (soprano saxophone) and Ingar Zach (percussion), 'recorded in the dining room of the Maison Bustros, Beirut, Lebanon on 21 August 2004'. It's one of the few Creative Sources releases were we get liner notes, about recording in a dining room, where these four people meet for the first time, at the Irtijial Festival in Lebanon, where they around in a circle. Three pieces in total some forty minutes of some highly intense microscopic playing. It's really tight and closed with the sounds being very closely together, like a very fine knitted pattern. The feedback in the second part seems to be coming from all four and make this into some nice group playing. More a group than the sum of four musicians. A highlight. By Vital 480
Ingar Zach/Ivar Grydeland : Concert review: From a concert at Festival NPAI, France - July 2004 By Philippe Alen - translated by Wade Matthews Golden Showers The following day was another thing altogether. Ingar Zach (dm, perc.) and Ivar Grydeland (gt., el. gt., bjo) invoked a golden shower at the Férolle Caserne. In this stone room with its packed dirt floor, under a barrel vault, the two Norwegians sat in front of the imposing fireplace and undertook the paradoxical process of an unending wait, a patient quest without any goal. The muted drone of a rubber ball sliding across the bass drum, the crystaline notes of a dry guitar, opened a huge space with unhurried and scrupulous serenity, not once disturbed by even the finest of gauze. Once this pure confidence in duration was established, a slow sweep of tonal chords posed its questions. The answers came from the dragonfly of a pocket fan flitting across various materials. New equilibria were achieved, toppled, recovered and replaced in ever faster fashion. With moments almost bordering on “new age”, they traced their path towards a new sonic state where a bow caressing a chinese bell and an e-bow created a shining ray of light that soon reflected a tiny granulation. Trembling strings, colliding wood, sounds always clearly defined, licked, garbed in a gangue of silence, slowly brought their noise into this music of the spheres. And then the time of squeaking arrived: on the frets of the banjo, on the rims of the drums—some even brought to mind the sound of old-fashioned rimshots. And here we must mention how a spicatto bow drawing staccato whimpers from a bloc of polystyrene can grip an entire audience while the other musician, hooking the banjo's lowest string near the bridge, perseveres. And yet, that was one of the most beautiful passages of a concert which reposed entirely on such lofty isometry, up at the snow line, a bright, clear place where everything shines in the fresh, purifying air. A great simplicity of construction leads one to distinguish each moment from the previous one, unrepentingly, through a complete change of instrumentation or of performance technique. And it is accompanied by a perfect mastery of duration. Thanks to the balance between pure sonic pleasure and the absolute sobriety without which this hedonism would be reduced to vain flattery, this music was able to reach heights that will long remain in our memory.
Ingar Zach/Ivar Grydeland: “You should have seen me before we first met (SOFA 515) reviews: Percussionist Zach and guitarist Grydeland founded the excellent Sofa label in 2000. Their second duo release presents a fascinating pair of improvisations caught last year in Geneva and Oslo . Grydeland characteristically rings harmonics and picks bright, steadily mutating figures on metal stringed acoustic guitar. Infrequently Zach adds decisive beats, generating cymbal shimmer or low friction, eliciting a drone from his Indian sruti box or drawing brilliant chimes from small bells. Controlled feedback from Grydelands electric guitar plays its part in what seems to be a conscious process of redefining the performance space, modifying its feel or adding significant decoration while the focal point, centre stage, may be left suggestively vacant. On CD these improvisations, five months apart in different cities, both convey an element of auditory set design that doesn't just frame but actively constitutes the music.By Julian Cowley for The Wire
The two long tracks that comprise this disc were recorded more than 5 months apart, at concerts in Geneva and Oslo in 2003. Compared to their first release on Sofa in 2000, the playing here is much more indirect, allowing listeners the chance to discern the discreet connection between the musicians for themselves. Eschewing decipherable interactions, the duo concentrates on the movement of the whole sonic field, pairing Grydeland's plucky strums on acoustic and electric guitars with Zach's long-shimmering cymbal vibrations. Zach's percussion requires some elaboration, for I can't pick out one definitive drumstick thwack on the entire record: it sounds like he's taken lessons out of the Keith Rowe Manual of Small Vibrating Musical Machines, and applied the techniques to percussion rather than guitar. Extensive whirring and droning - thanks also to the Sruti box he employs - typify his approach throughout; yet, he's able to generate and differentiate enough sonorities and rhythmic patterns to challenge any notion of monotony. His ultra-clacky vibrations during the fourth minute of the first cut - imagine a pencil rolling at warpspeed down a desktop - temper the solemnity of Grydeland's gentle guitar thrumbs. The percussion is less striking than throbbing, like hitting the underside of a dumbek in rhythm to a drip. In the second track Zach delivers ambiguous scrummaging and big ringing, but it's more like the ringing of bells instead of cymbals. Grydeland maintains an assured poise throughout the album, letting chords echo faintly, and relying on his own sense of rhythmic development. A sophisticated new direction for this young duo.By Andrew Choate for CODA Magazine
Norwegian modernists' guitarist Ivar Grydeland and percussionist Ingar Zach are known to push the proverbial envelope on occasion. But, they also elevate the avant-garde idiom to loftier heights, regardless of musical intensity or mode of free-form type navigation. These rather delicately scintillating duets are contemplative type forays, which is a notion that sort of parallels the album title. Grydeland performs on electric and acoustic guitars, frequently earmarked with a sense of rawness and deliberation. However, the twosome often generates oscillating effects via a series of calm musings, reverberating lines and much more. As Zach's use of the droning and bellows-based “Sruti Box,” fares rather well with his partner's odd tunings, and hypnotic chord voicings. At times, the music is extremely quiet, yet the duo generally embarks upon an evolutionary type methodology, via a hodgepodge of reconfigurations and multicolored hues. The music is not easily pigeonholed, yet surprisingly entertaining as an understated element of surprise permeates a good portion of these two lengthy pieces. Review by Glenn Astrita for All About Jazz
Norwegian only ! Ivar Grydeland og Ingar Zach, derimot, er ikke hva du tar dem for. Hehehe.Som duo lager de komponert duomusikk. De bruker null virkemidler, allerminst i form av den skakkjørte "formen", som hjelper dragsuget inn i lydteppet. Slik at de kan sprekke leppa helt ut/inn i en John Cale-aktig banjostøydrone. Med andre ord lange låter - to, men tilsammen en. "We find it interesting that the musical form and expression of the two pieces are different despite the similarity of elements". Coverkommentarene forblir kunstige, ved døra til den overkunstige formgivingen. Cool!Nummer en, tatt opp i Geneve, er lengst og best i ren tone-bemektigelse.Selv om Ingar Zach bare er en av de to er han en av de beste trommisene jeg vet om, og her får han et sjamanisk slør over både spillet og kroppen. Ikke fordi han gjør alt ugjennkjennelig - for så dum er man ikke når man backer opp en plate som You Should Have Seen Me (Before We First Met).Oppsummert er dette en plate som på merkelig vis mangler intensitet ogfokus. Ved slutten vrir "er dette alt"?- følelsen seg om til takknemlig nysgjerrighet. Den som ikke er perfekt må bare være veldig slem.
Sindre Andersen for Mute«De to kjenner hverandre godt. Det kan ha både sine fordeler og ulemper når det er improvisasjonsmusikk man sysler med. En av fordelene kan være at begge vet hva de ikke vil spille for den andre. Både Ingar Zach, perkusjon og Ivar Grydeland, gitar er kresne med hensyn til hva de slipper frem i musikken sin. Duoen kan fremstå med minimalistisk styrke og la pauser og rom definere kraften i selve spillet. Grydeland er i ferd med å krype vekk fra den bredskuldrede Derek Bailey-tradisjonen, og han viser egenart på utgivelsens to spor. Zach er leken og oppfinnsom i sin til dels lavmælte perkussive fremferd. På sitt beste treffer de hverandre i et fellesskap som samlet overskrider summen av hver enkelts bidrag, og "You Should Have Seen Me Before We First Met" har mange storvokste sekvenser. Det er mye utvikling å spore på de tre årene som har gått siden forrige Sofa-utgivelse med denne duoen..» Arild Andersen for Aftenposten
REVIEWS OF CONCERT AT INSTAL/GLASGOW THE 17TH OCTOBER 04 WITH JOHN BUTCHER/INGAR ZACH - Saxophones are again paralysed tenderly in the subsequent performance by free-improv überlord John Butcher (replacing Derek Bailey) alongside Norwegian percussion renegade Ingar Zach. They weave and improvise a nigh-inscrutable canvas of unorthodox percussion, sax playing and timing. This is strangled birdsong; falsetto nail filing; cuckoo sax and snuffling percussion. Zach rampantly hankers for new surfaces, frantically seeking his next sonic fix, while Butcher dispatches ricochet notes, banging on his sax as one might a bongo. This is music to make your senses contort and your stomach rumble. A Representative of Plan B Magazine
- It's a credit to way the rest of the programme was assembled that, even after this kind of devastatingly emotional performance, there was no slump in the energy levels. With the cancellation of improvising guitarist Derek Bailey, it was down to UK saxophonist John Butcher to duet with Scandinavian percussionist Ingar Zach. Butcher made full use of The Arches' odd acoustics, firing off single notes that came right back at him in the form of evolved spectral echoes. Zach's use of drums and percussion went way past any notion of keeping conventional time, with tin rhythms built from pings and clatters underpinning the sound of whirring electric fans and bowed bells, the latter providing a beautiful backdrop for Butcher's exacting use of saxophone-controlled feed back. Instal's mission statement is to showcase “brave new music” and this year was certainly their most exhilarating and fearless outing to date. David Keenan for Sunday Herald
- Elsewhere, the defiance of conventional instrumentation was widespread. John Butcher's saxophone and Ingar Zach's percussion combined for fascinating investigations of any sound-producing surface, the former eschewing blowing for sporadic tapping of the horn's metal, a skill given full expression by the percussionist Z'ev, who cycled through an artillery of drumming on steel pipes and sheet aluminium with duck whistle and some elemental beating of drums. In parts, it was jaw-plummeting, with such masterful innovation finding its more thoughtful antonym in William Basinski, whose distorted tape loops and electronic gadgetism offered a welcome ambient interlude from much of the programme's intensity. Jay Richardson for The Scotsman
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